Brooklyn Game Lab Presents: Adventures in the Underdark

The party appeared moments later 100 feet above the surface of the ocean, and plummeting quickly. Ganon summoned his whale to provide a soft landing, and the party caught their bearings. Aaron peered through the monocle yet again to see a ship sailing northeast, and the party set a course.

They were set upon by giant sharks, and when they tried to escape to the sky, the sharks followed. A fierce skirmish broke out, but through the look of bloodying their opponents, the party managed to make the sharks take care of most of the fight, attacking each other.

With some struggle, the adventurers made their way northeast to find an island mansion. They saw from a week in the past a ship arrive, dropping off a fair maiden with fiery red hair, and the physique of a warrior.

Servants greeted the party and welcomed them to the home of Adairis, a wealthy merchant and scientist. They were invited to feast at his dining table, and were introduced to the maiden, Denys, who was Adairis’ wife, and a woman who appeared to be her identical twin sister, also named Denys, ALSO Adairis’ wife.

The party caught up on the happenings of the surface world, and made an offer to sell what remained of the red dragon egg they had acquired. Adairis offered to purchase it from them, provided they could couple it with a favor. One of his servants had disappeared after apparently stealing a rare tapestry which included a powerful summoning circle as part of its design. No other large ships had been through the area, so Adairis believed that the servant was still on the island.

Adairis led the party to the tower where the tapestry had been hung, and, looking through time, the party witnessed a pair of shadowy figures poison the servant, stuff the tapestry into a bag of holding, shove the servant out a window, and turn invisible. They looked out the window and could see blood stained on the rocks, but no sign of the body. Descending down, they found evidence that a small boat had been docked along the cliffside, and, again looking through time (really guys? how many times are you going to solve your problems by looking through time?) watched as the servant was carried into the boat by invisible hands, the rope docking the boat was cut, and, shakily, the boat set out to see toward the Isle of the Hunt.

The party demanded immediate passage to the Isle, and Adairis concurred, offering to take them on a hunt for The Most Dangerous Game, clearly, dinosaurs.

When they arrived at the island, Adairis attempted to poison the party unconscious, revealing a nefarious plot to hunt them himself. Unfortunately for the merchant, only half the party fell prey to his poison. He turned invisible to plot an escape, but before he could move, was grappled by a party member and punched in the stomach until he surrendered. The party took Adairis hostage and planned to return to the manor house to lay claim to treasure and establish a new base of operation.

The next few sessions are a dungeon crawl, so I will be compiling them as one chapter and making additions to it as we go along

Having earned the surrender of the derro guard party, the adventurers stated their business in the West Cleft District. They informed the captain of the guard that they were tracking a derro named Droki who was couriering messages to the Gray Ghosts. They demanded to know where he ran off to, and the captain said that he did not know, but that if Droki was colluding with Duergar, than he was a traitor and should be tracked, captured, and brought to justice. It seemed like everyone in Gracklstugh had a reason to hate Droki. They offered any assistance they could muster, and helped the party track Droki’s footsteps to a narrow crack in the stone walls, covered thickly with Faerzress. The party bid the derro farewell and were warned not to double cross them, and to surface with Droki in tow.

The tunnel descended and the glowing fungus grew brighter and more prominent. The party struggled to maintain their sanity and Sarith expressed concern that their minds would not last long in such a hostile environment. Attempting to retrace Droki’s journey, Aaron noticed that he had wandered to a patch of fungus and disappeared. The party searched the area to find a tiny narrow passageway, too small for any of them to fit. Various mushrooms had been picked, and Stool told the party that two complementing varieties were called Pygmywort and Bigwig, which, as their names implied, could reduce or enlarge anyone who consumed them. The party gathered a sizable collection of both, shrunk themselves down, and squeezed through the passageway.

When they emerged, they could hear gently running water to their right. They explored and found a small pond with a light current. Seabear threw a Bigwig mushroom into the pond and the waters expanded. The party split in an effort to escape the rising tides, and those touched by it suffered a poisonous effect that scrambled their minds. Among these was Ganon, who, in a stupor, wandered off from the rest of the party.

At a crossroads further down the path, Ganon thought he heard Aaron’s voice coming from a different pathway. Rather than follow it, he struck off on his own. He could hear chanting from around a corner, turned himself invisible and cast his magically imbued armor, and attempted to stealthily enter the room. Unfortunately, Ganon had significantly worse than 20/20 vision, and failed to see the poorly concealed pit-trap leading into the room. He fell twenty feet into a puddle of green slime and began to disintegrate.

With his magic abilities spent for the day, it looked like Ganon was doomed. He fortunately remembered having a few fire lichens, and used a cantrip to set one ablaze. It exploded in his hand, dealing significant damage to him but also killing off the green slime. As the dust settled, he could hear the chanting grow closer, and shrieking, and the low growl of two massive canines. He cried out in fright as loud as he could to attract the attention of his companions.

They arrived just in time…

A tremendous fight broke out between the party and a pack of derro cultists of Demogorgon backed up by a two-headed death dog and a fearsome ettin. Otto Sylvester was incapacitated, but the party barely managed to survive. They found a statue built in the crude likeness of the cursed stone giant, Rihuud. They theorized that the Stonespeaker may be able to reverse the curse should he be brought the statue.

The party continued their delve through another narrow tunnel, and sneaked up on a pack of quasits playing in the dungeon. Aaron quickly dispatched all but one, and the party captured the wounded demon, recruiting it as a familiar.

The party heard snarling in the distance, and found several cave bears held captive by derro. They killed the derro and calmed the bears, recruiting them for further exploration

Armed with the metagame knowledge that bases are usually located are located at the spot furthest from the entrance of a dungeon, the party set forth for the northeast corner of the tunnels. They were battered by a diseased waterweird, and reached a massive gate. The bears tore down the gate violently, unfortunately causing a loud commotion which would prove devastating to the party.

They continued past the gate and found a large, seemingly empty room. At the center of the room were two mesas, one hosting a solid obelisk and the other a small bed with a large, red-speckled egg on it. Concluding that they’d found Themberchaud’s egg, Aaron rode his eagle to the top of the platform to grab the egg. As he picked it up, a large number of duergar, formerly invisible, unleashed a hailstorm of crossbow bolts. Aaron passed the egg on to his eagle to swiftly escape, but the eagle was hit by a paralysis blast from a spectator. He lost hold of the egg and it smashed into a dragonny, yolky mess on the cavern wall.

The party swung into gear, dispatching their enemies as quickly as possible, and tried to come up with a way to make up for the lost egg. Otto cast mend to restore it to its proper shape, but could not restore the structure of the insides.

The party examined the obelisk and determined that it was possessing of strong, but wild, teleportation magic. They all laid hands on the stone structure, and channeled magic energy into it, activating the stone and sending them off to parts unknown…

The party moved on from the wyrmsmith’s lair to make arrangements for tracking Droki. After a series of mishaps magically persuading merchants to cut them good deals, they found themselves once again at the mercy of the city guard. They were taken to Overlake Hold to finally meet with the captain of the guard, a duergar woman named Errde. Sebastian disguised himself as a duergar for the meeting, but slipped up when trying to speak on behalf of the party.

“I am a citizen of Gracklstugh,” he said, “and I can vouch for the good character of these adventurers.”

“A citizen, eh?” replied Errde. “Funny that I’ve never seen the likes of you before. What’s your name?”

“Uh… uh… Duergar?”

“You’re a duergar named Duergar?”

“My parents had a sense of humor.”

“I knew it! Impostor! Duergar have no sense of humor!”

Errde aimed a wand of detect magic on Sebastian, revealing the enchantment disguising his true form. A fight nearly broke out, but Errde was persuaded, perhaps by shear numbers, to consider alternative punishment. She offered the party an opportunity to make amends by seeking out signs of a derro uprising in the West Cleft District. Errde explained that the Council of Savants, a leadership circle of derro wizards, were suspected of trying to stage a riot. Evidence could theoretically be uncovered if the party could successfully track down Droki, the same derro suspected of being a courier for the Gray Ghosts.

The party took to the Darklake District to inquire about Droki’s whereabouts at the local tavern. Aaron used his monocle to track an earlier visit by Droki, and then the party raced to follow the surprisingly fleet-footed little creature through Gracklstugh and into the West Cleft District.

They found the entire district abandoned, with no derro anywhere in sight. After about an hour of navigating narrow tunnels, tracking Droki wherever he went, The party gazed through time again to try and determine where the derro had fled to. They found that all the walls and cliffs surrounding them were full of derro ambushers, just as a volley of crossbow bolts came flying at them.

20 derro crawled out of the patchwork cliff surfaces and sent round after round of attacks after the party. Though heavily wounded, the party managed to whittle down their attackers’ numbers until nearly half the derro were eliminated. They demanded a surrender at that point, and the pack lowered their weapons.

The guards began to lead the party to Overlake Hold to stand trial before their captain, Errde Blackskull, but were cut short by a rampaging stone giant with two heads. The party was released to neutralize the giant, opting not to kill him based on the race’s normally congenial nature. They unfortunately killed several guards in friendly fire in their efforts to stop the giant from doing more damage. As they finally managed to defeat the stone giant with a well aimed sleep potion, another giant arrived, in more typically calm fashion.

He introduced himself as Dorhun, apprentice to Stonespeaker Hgraam, their high priest. The rampaging giant was Rihuud, an acolyte. Rihuud had been communing with the stone at Cairngorn Cavern when he went mad, sprouted another head, and went stampeding through the city. Dorhun encouraged the adventurers to pay a visit to Cairngorn to meet with the Stonespeaker before leaving Gracklstugh.

Aaron considered it the better part of lawfulness to turn themselves back into the city guards with profuse apology for the collateral damage. Just as they were put back in chains, however, the guards were stopped by Gartokkar Xundorn, Keeper of the Flame. Gartokkar informed them that the Wyrmsmith, Themberchaud, had sought their presence, and they were told to visit him in his lair.

When they arrived at the dragon’s lair, Themberchaud told Gartokkar to wait outside. The party came face to face with a fierce, adult red dragon, the power behind the forges of Gracklstugh. The Wyrmsmith told the party that he’d grown suspicious of the true motives of the keepers, and wanted outside agents to find out what their true intentions were. He told the party to follow whatever directive Gartokkar had given them, but to inform him of the plans the keepers had made.

Returning to Gartokkar, the party was told that the assassination attempt on Werz was made by a group of thieves guild members called the Gray Ghosts. Their leader was recently killed by the Keepers of the Flame, and as vengeance, the Ghosts had stolen a prized possession of theirs, a singular red dragon’s egg. The Ghosts had a messenger who traveled through the Darklake District, a derro named Droki, who may be able to lead the party to their secret hideout. The party ‘nonchalantly’ made their way back to the lair of Themberchaud.

The dragon was intrigued and surprised by the news of the keepers seeking a red dragon egg. He asked that they follow the directives to seek out Droki, but upon recovering the egg, they were to bring it back to him.

I don't think they exist

The party set camp one last night, the city of Gracklstugh but a few miles off. Aaron was awoken by his eagle crying out and flying in from the north. He used his monocle of time travel to perceive Topsy and Turvy swimming off to the north. The party stirred awake and, when Jim Jar didn’t rise with the rest of the party, Otto pulled away his bedding to discover that Jim Jar had been murdered in his sleep, and a frightening arcane symbol had been carved into his chest. Aaron peered through time again and caught sight of a shadowy figure deftly slitting Jim Jar’s throat and then disappearing into the deeps. Ganon inquired to his whale if he’d seen anything amiss, but the whale said that no one traveled deep into the water.

Everyone having awoken, Otto took note that his face felt raw. The rest of the party looked upon him, and discovered that he had begun to suffer an affliction brought upon them by the black stones that formed the eyes of the underwater statue they had discovered, a cursed item!

The party rode Ganon’s whale after the route Topsy and Turvy had traveled along, suspecting them of perhaps being behind Jim Jar’s death. They came upon a small cove, completely shrouded in darkness. Aaron entered first, channeling light energy into his sword. He could hear footsteps running after him, having been easily revealed in the light from his sword. A pair of wererats landed at him, quickly issuing blows, but Ganon and Otto closed ranks quickly and helped him incapacitate the wererats. Knocked unconscious, they took back the forms of Topsy and Turvy. A quick and thoughtful check to the last time they were on the surface reminded the party that they had roughly hit their first full moon since descending into the Underdark.

The party carried the unconscious deep gnome brothers back to camp and cleaned their wounds. They then moved on to Gracklstugh.

At the gates, they were confronted by customs officials. They narrowly made an argument that they were traveling merchants and wanted to trade the jewels they had discovered in the Underdark for provisions.

They were granted package to the Darklake District, but before they could make it through the winding passages leading into the city, they were confronted by a stout duergar named Gorglak. Gorglak demanded they offer up their drowish weaponry as a bribe, or he would claim they were thieves and report them to the city guard. Buppido pointed out that bribery is very uncommon among the duergar, but the party didn’t want to risk stirring things up too early. Gorglak told them to visit Werz Saltbaron to deliver their goods, and that if they hadn’t followed through within 24 hours, he would report them.

Heading into the city, the party witnessed strange happenings, including a pair of hagglers making each others’ cases. The seller kept offering to accept less gold, and the buyer kept insisting on paying more. Otto played them both for chumps and managed to make a very profitable exchange for the party. They moved on to visit Werz.

Before they could draw Werz’s attention, he was set upon by a pack of four duergar assassins. The party easily fought the would-be killers off and stabilized Werz, but were grabbed by the city guard for assaulting citizens.

The party set out across the Dark Lake toward Gracklstugh, the Duergar capital. With the aid of a whale companion under the command of Danin, they fought off grell and trolls. They caught sight of a water weird, and Otto Sylvester compelled it to take him to the treasure it guarded. Unfortunately, it interpreted his command by dragging him underwater. There he found a small onyx statue with jade eyes. He and Seabear each claimed an eye for “safe keeping” until the party could find somewhere to sell it.

As they neared the halfway point to Gracklstugh, they came across an abandoned boat docked on a small island. Aaron used his monocle to the past to perceive a party of duergar miners noticing the parties arrival and turning invisible to guard the boat. The party called out to the duergar, and the merchant they saved at Sloobludop, Hemeth, vouched for them. The miners agreed to help them navigate the rest of the way to Gracklstufh, but could not promise them safe passage once they arrived.

The Deep Father rises

Before launching their assault on the altar of the Deep Father, the party gathered equipment and rations from the local shops in Sloobludop. They prepared a sudden assault, rather than following Ploopploopeen’s suggestion of a staged sacrifice. As they hid near the altar, they saw a Duergar being prepared for sacrifice by the archpriestess Bloppblippodd.

One after another, the whole party attempted to control the mind of the archpriestess, but her strong will fought off their attempts.

Aaron sent his eagle companion above the fray and Lord Searil sent a telepathic message to the Duergar to run. The eagle dropped the bead of force onto the the altar, capturing it along with the archpriestess and one of her monitors, the Duergar and another monitor being pushed clear by the force bubble.

All out war broke out, Kua-Toa killing Kua-Toa, and the party fought off the efforts of the Deep Father’s followers. Meanwhile, Bloppblippodd completed her sacrifice using the blood of her own monitor. As the blood swished around the force bubble, a rumbling force came from the Deep Lake. Two gigantic baboon heads lifted from the surface, roaring in ear-shattering manner. Kua-Toa ran and screamed, but the party retained their composure. They quickly rushed to the distant shoreline to board boats and sailed out into the Deep Lake, saving Plooploopeen in the process. At sea, they reviewed their map of the Under Dark and tried to plan their next destination: Gracklstaugh, the Neverlight Grove, or Blingdenstone.

One thing has become abundantly clear, Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons, was loose in the Under Dark.

Nearing the end of The Silken Paths, the party heard a blast of a war horn coming from near the beginning of the path. Looking back, they saw Ilvara and her crew of Drow approaching. They rushed for solid ground, planning to burn the paths, but Stool tripped on the webs and fell prone. Aaron sent his spirit eagle back to recover Stool, and Eldeth Feldrun rushed back on to the webs. She was hit by a blast from Shoor Vandree’s viscous wand, covering her in a sticky glue.

Seeing an opportunity to call for reinforcements, Aaron sent Shuushar ahead to call for Kua-Toa warriors to support the party.

Foo Foo Monkey and Seabear both tried to rescue Eldeth from the webs, but were hit by poisoned drow arrows, rendering them unconscious. As the drow neared, the party worked together to keep everyone alert and bring them back to solid ground. Once they’d cleared the webs, Foo Foo Monkey unleashed his fiery dragon’s breath on the webs and the entire system of the Silken Paths began to collapse. The drow drifted to the bottom using a combination of magic and agility, but their easy path to the heroes was destroyed.

Yuk Yuk and Spiderbait were devastated, as their entire livelihood had gone up in flames in a matter of seconds. They bid farewell to the party, but said that they would stay behind while the spiders gradually rebuilt the Paths.

The party traveled on toward Sloobludop and caught up to a very worried Shuushar. The Kua-Toa whispered an apology before the party was ambushed by a party of Deep Father worshippers. Otto Sylvester attempted to create a vision of the Deep Father, but not knowing his true form, was not very convincing. The party fought hard and forced a surrender from all but the leader of the raiding party. The leader laughed in their faces but was struck through the head by a spear thrown by Ploopploopeen.

Ploop welcomed the party, though he was disappointed to see that Shuushar had returned, considering him a heretic. He warned them that an uneasy conflict had developed between those Kua Toa still loyal to The Sea Mother and the new faction led by his daughter, Bloppblippodd. He asked for the party’s help in resolving this conflict, and then led them back to the village of Sloobludop.

Upon arriving, Ploop led the party through the village to the shrine of The Sea Mother, a statue of a humanoid woman with the head and claws of a crayfish. Offerings were strewn all around the statue, and Foo Foo Monkey cast detect magic to see if any were valuable. He caught site of a pearl that was in fact a Bead of Force, capable of creating a 10-foot radius bubble around any object it strikes. The party left one of the minotaur skeletons’ great axes as a return offering and took the bead in its place.

Ploop took the party to his abode and introduced them to his son, Glooglugogg. He proposed a plan of offering the party as sacrifices to the Deep Father to help them get close enough to Blopp to attack. The party wasn’t excited to be offered as sacrifices, even as a ruse, and suggested instead that they launch an all-out assault after having time to rest, hoping to shock the Deep Father worshipers into submission.

The party contracted with the goblins Yuk Yuk and Spiderbait for guidance across The Silken Paths, splitting preferences between applying oil to their shoes for movement and trusting their own balance. Lord Searil, suspicious of the goblin’s intentions, quietly cast Charm Person on Yuk Yuk as they set forth on the webs.

Yuk Yuk, enchanted, insisted that he and his brother had no ill intentions for the party, but that the Paths were a very dangerous area regardless. As an example, he pointed out a pair of stalactites toward the ceiling of the cavern, and said that they were clearly Dark Mantles waiting to ambush the party.

Everyone agreed that another route would be wiser, and the web runners helped them swing to another web system like brilliant trapeze artists. Unfortunately, their new landing spot was even more dangerous than the path with dark mantles.

Cheering over their successful trapeze maneuvers, the party almost didn’t notice Otto Sylvester’s disappearance. Danin managed to look up and catch site of a pack of Giant Spiders pulling Otto up in a capturing web.

The party unleashed a hailstorm of spells and crossbow bolts up toward the cluster, but not before the creatures were able to pierce Otto several times, rendering him unconscious. Luckily, Otto used his first opportunity while being pulled up to secure a rope to himself, so that his descent would be shortened should he fall.

Lord Searil sent an Eldritch Blast off-target, striking one of the dark mantles in the distance and alerting them to the party’s presence. They swooped in from their perch on the cavern ceiling, attacking Foo Foo Monkey and Searil, knocking the Foo unconscious.

A well-aimed crossbow bolt from Aaron killed the spider holding Otto, and the bard fell the length of his rope, bouncing as though on a bungee cord, but suffering additional damage. Sabarik of Doge ran along the webs to Lay Hands on Otto, restoring him to consciousness.

Searil launched another eldritch blast, finally hitting his target successfully and sending a spider soaring through the air. It launched a support web out, however, and began an arc back toward the party.

Otto, once again aware, unleashed a Sleep spell, a powerful weapon in a 500 foot deep cavern. He rendered two spiders unconscious, including the one making its way back to the party, and they fell to their deaths. Sabarik contributed a shield smash to knock another spider to its death, and Danin unleashed powerful magics to defeat yet another.

Wounded and worried, the party paused to catch their breath. Eldeth Feldrun pointed above to a shadow of a figure thick in the spiders’ webs. Aaron climbed the rope left behind by Otto to find a halfling captured by the spiders. He cut the webs away and lay hands on the traveler.

Regaining consciousness, the halfing introduced himself as Fargas, a rogue who had been traveling with his adventuring party in search of the treasure of The Lost Tomb of Kharoum, before they were separated while being pursued by gnolls. The party concluded that this party must have been the setters of the [[Session 2: A Shortcut to Mushrooms | campsite]] they had stumbled upon a few days earlier. Fargas was unsure if he was abandoned or betrayed by his party, but asked the adventurers to keep an eye out for a half-elf cleric of Lothander, a wizard of divination (who ironically did not foresee these events), and a monk of the Way of the Open Hand. The party, knowing the history of the centuries past Immortal War, had instant suspicion of the monk adventurer.

With an opportunity for a side quest for treasure, the party agreed to make their way on to Sloobludop first, trying to destroy the Silken Path on their way out to deter their drow pursuers. Once their and re-equipped, they could charter a boat to swing back around and explore the lost tomb.

Notice for readers. Due to the nature of Brooklyn Game Lab’s program, player characters may vary slightly from week to week. I will open each session with notes on who is featured.

Once they were clear of Velkynvelve, the party argued over the best approach of finding food. Vall argued that they should start by eating the most meaty but vulnerable member of the prisoners, but Prince Derendil stood in his way before he could attack Shuushar. Eldeth Feldrun suggested that rather than eating each other, they work together to find edible mushrooms.

The party set forth, relying on Eldeth’s scouting ability to find a deposit of edible mushrooms. The party ground up several bluecaps into flour, and gathered some spicy but explosive fire lichens to make a kind of butter. They were preparing to settle down for sleep among the mushrooms, but Sarith Kzekarit urged against it, pointing out the thick deposits of faerzress lining the walls.

The party backed up to an easily defensible area and camped for the night. Sarith explained that faerzress is rumored to make individuals go mad if they stay in its presence, and he has flash memories of being surrounded by it shortly before his capture for suspected murder. Otto Sylvester asked him for more details about his capture, since it was clearly far from Menzoberranzan, and Sarith was not sure of the exact position, but believed it to be somewhere across the Dark Lake.

Having gathered enough food to last them for a day or two, Aaron insisted on making haste the following day. They were nearing exhaustion when they stumbled upon some form of catacomb chamber, littered with bones of all shapes and sizes. Shuushar hypothesized that either this was a makeshift burial chamber or a former lair of a necromancer. As the party searched for evidence and treasure, a pair of Minotaur Skeletons raised up from the bones and attacked them.

Vall deftly fired off arrows while the warlocks, Lord Searil and Danin pounded the undead beasts with eldritch blasts. Otto Sylvester considered unleashing a sleep spell, but realized that the skeletons would likely be immune to it. Aaron channeled divine energy to strike one of the skeletons with his crossbow bolts, bringing it low. Peren Everfizzle took a running jump for the other, but tripped on a bone and landed off-balance but steady at its feet. The beast took a mighty swing with its great axe at Peren, but he managed to lightly side-step it and jump onto the creatures head.

Wounded and enraged, the minotaur stomped toward Aaron and gored him with its horns, tossing him to the side like a bad piece of food. A quick barrage of attacks from the rest of the party was enough to finally eliminate the creature, with Vall landing the final blow. Otto quickly cured the wounds of his fellow halfling, and the party sought out a better shelter to make camp. They managed to find an abandoned campsite, with evidence of a pursuit of four humanoids, one small, by a pack of larger humanoid creatures. The trail looked to be a couple of days old, so they concluded that no one would be coming back this way.

That evening, Otto spoke with Prince Derendil about his home land of Nelrindenvane. Derendil wove a fantastic tale about a land shielded from the perpetual cloud cover of the rest of the planet, and explained that the sun shines on Nelrindenvane alone. He feared that his nemesis, the evil wizard Terrestor, sought to destroy the mountain range blocking clouds from reaching the kingdom, so as to cast the land fully into darkness.

The next several days travel proved mostly uneventful, but on the fifth day, the party found themselves at the top of a large gorge, switchbacks leading back and forth to the ground level. The path was narrow and steep, so the party tied themselves together with silk rope they recovered from Velkynvelve. Derendil stumbled partway down the trail, his large size making the path treacherous, but Vall managed to grab him with one hand and pull him back onto the trail. Eldeth was incredibly impressed with Vall’s strength and drew up close to him, but before either could continue their flirtation, an Ochre Jelly oozed its way out of the rocky surface and attacked. A quick succession of blows and spells killed off the ooze, but took the mood right along with it.

That evening, the party spoke with Shuushar about what to expect when they reached Sloobludop. Shuushar explained that there was some recent infighting among his people, born of religious disagreements. A friend of his, Ploopploopeen, represented the traditional god, the Sea Mother, but a recent faction had developed worshiping the Deep Father. Shuushar didn’t take in with the religious bickering, preferring to bring his discovery of tranquility and pacifism back to his people.

A day’s journey from Sloobludop, the party arrived at the Silken Paths, a network of spider webs crisscrossing a 500 foot deep, 2,000 foot wide chasm. A pair of goblins ran along the webs and joined the party, introducing themselves as Yuk Yuk and Spiderbait, the web runners. They offered to help the party across the Silken Paths for a price, and Aaron offered one of the minotaur great axes they took from the skeletons they’d fought. Yuk Yuk accepted and offered oil to slick everyone’s boots, to help with faster travel.

Captured by Ilvara Mizzrym and her Drow warriors, the party was held prisoner at Velkynvelve, an elevated drow outpost about a month’s journey from the drow capital of Menzoberranzan. After 2 weeks of scavenging for small items like iron bars, the party planned their escape.

Aaron, one of the party’s paladins, struck a deal with Jimjar, to exchange treasure for an expedient escape, and Jimjar found it a great opportunity to make his way back to Blingdenstone.

Otto Sylvester, the party bard, tossed insults at their prison guard. When the guard opened the pen to punish him, Aaron struck at him with an iron bar, and encouraged Ront to do the same.

The second guard took off running, but not before sustaining magic blasts from the warlock Tabascus, and the wizard Foo Foo Monkey. They weren’t enough to take the guard down, however, and he managed to escape into the barracks. Aaron rallied the rest of the prisoners, and he and fellow paladin Sabarik of Doge, led the riot out onto a precarious rope bridge.

At the end of the bridge stood a mighty elite drow warrior. Aaron exchanged blows with him but was brought down with a single blow from the drow’s poisoned blade. In a rage, Prince Derendil charged to the front of the bridge and threw his weight at the drow warrior. The drow skillfully returned his attack, but the quaggoth’s poisonous blood negated the majority of the damage. A mis-aimed follow-up strike from the drow gave Derendil the opportunity to grab the drow by the arm and throw him to the depths below.

The party entered the barracks where two junior drow solidiers stood. Otto demanded a surrender from them which they happily offered. Aaron drew out a treasured eye piece that allowed him to see a moment from the past, and caught a vision of Ilvara Mizzrym chastising her lieutenant, Jorlan Duskryn, and offering his post and his magic wand to a younger drow, Shoor Vandree.

The party armed themselves with the weapons and armor from the armory, and lowered ropes to the pools below Velkynvelve. Before the drow could take up pursuit, they consulted with their traveling companions, and took Shuushar the Awakened’s advice to make their way to Sloobludop, a major Kua-Toa fishing village about 8 days journey.

As the party set forth, they knew they would shortly have to contend with their lack of provisions and with the threat of pursuit from Ilvara and her squadron.